


This Is Bad

by popmytoespls



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anxiety, Apocalypse, Awkward Sexual Situations, Body Image, Dark, Dominant Levi, Drama, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Flashbacks, Fucked Up, Insecurity, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) - Freeform, Loneliness, Lonely Reader, Loss of Virginity, Masturbation, No People, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Graphic Smut, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Porn With Plot, Possessive Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Post-Apocalypse, References to Depression, Slightly Awkward Reader, There's hardly any relationships and characters cause it's just you and Levi lol, Virgin Reader, mental health, reader - Freeform, stalker levi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-01 21:11:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16291907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popmytoespls/pseuds/popmytoespls
Summary: So everyone's gone.But you and    him.





	1. ONE

**Author's Note:**

> A shorter chapter.  
> More content (and juice you could say) will be starting by chapter two!

After the first month, you started talking to yourself.

You weren’t exactly sure why or what exactly you said but all you can say for sure was that it went from a slight mumbling under your breath to full-blown conversations in which you were both speaker one and speaker two; you were the question and the response; the entire dialogue; a one-woman show.

  
It was better than nothing though.

And you were pretty positive that you read somewhere that a person goes crazy without human contact; something about the lack of stimulation for the brain and sensory deprivation and what have you. You don’t remember it well; it was some article you read online late at night when doing your schoolwork seemed too much of a hassle. Hmmm. Remember the Internet? You missed it. After     **it** happened the power and internet servers went down after a couple days. Because the Internet service providers weren’t around neither was the internet. On the plus side, you were beginning to finish a lot of good books you had been meaning to pick up. The reading kept your mind from wandering; however, it caused a deep pit in your stomach. The adventures and romantic relationships and the people…the people caused a longing in your heart that nagged you until you had to put the book down and pick up another meaningless task.

Knitting. Knitting is fun. You didn’t know how to knit. But you could learn.

  
With no people around, you could pick up any hobby you wanted to. You didn’t have any responsibilities anymore. After the first few days of sheer panic and loneliness, that was the first thought that seemed like the silver lining in this shit-show – You. Had. No. More. Responsibilities.

\----------  
You were in college when    **it**   happened. It was your second year. You remembered     **it** happened distinctly around mid-terms because you were running off of four hours of sleep and your desk was cluttered with notes for your up-coming exams. You had been yawning as you silently reviewed your flashcards. Those wide, loud, ugly yawns that appear as if your lungs are greedily attempting to suck all of the oxygen out of the air due to sheer exhaustion. You had glanced over at your roommate sleeping peacefully. Lucky. Her two exams compared to your five had your jaw clenching from jealously. Your head had begun to nod before you could stop it. Your eyes felt dry and heavy. They stung. They begged for a break. You picked up your phone and set a timer for an hour. One hour of sleep. It was your reward for non-stop studying and you planned on reaping your much-deserved reward right now while the red, glowing digits of your clock read 3:00 a.m. You pushed your notes further to the center of your desk and stretched your arms out on the desk’s surface. Nestling your head into the crook of your arm you had drifted peacefully asleep.

When you had woke up it was 7:00 a.m. So much for one fucking hour. What was the use of alarms if not to wake someone up on time. You scoffed. Your class began at 7:30. You had rushed to the shared bathroom at the end of the hallway in your dorm. You were going on two days without a shower; three days was simply pushing it. After you had quickly stripped and scrubbed away the grime that had accumulated over the past couple days you turned off the faucet of the hot water, leaving only cold water running. You shivered but kept your feet firmly planted. The cold water combined with the cold air blowing from the open vent in the bathroom seemed like a present-day torture device. But it was sure to keep you awake. You dried off, making it back to your room with five minutes before class to spare. You changed into your clothes and grabbed your book-bag with the speed of a marathon runner.

You probably should have noticed that no one was around on your commute to class. The sidewalks were empty. The coffee shops on the way to class lacked their normal hustle-and-bustle at this time in the morning. The streets lacked cars, or at least operating ones. The cars left in the road looked desolate, almost sad, as they lacked a driver to operate them.  
The air was completely and utterly devoid of noise.

And you noticed NONE of it.

With your earbuds in your ear and your mouth busily working away at a granola bar, you were so blindly naïve to the fact that     **it** had happened. You hummed along to your music, so completely wrapped up in your own world that you were ignorant to the goings-on of the world around you. Everything was so still. Oh. Oh the stillness would drive you so crazy later, but for now you hummed so happily. The day had been starting off well (minus the waking up late). There had been no lines for the showers; you felt prepared for your exam, or as prepared as you could be; your granola bar had tasted amazing; and after this class you were going to nap for the rest of the day. The day was looking promising.

You hopped up the stairs of the building that your classroom was located in. You still had a minute to spare. You had rushed down the hallway to your classroom and swung open the door. As you had made your way to your seat, that’s when something didn’t feel right. You were the only one there. Not one seat was filled. Okay. This couldn’t be right. You remember checking the time. 7:29 a.m. Okay that’s right. You scanned your email checking to see if the professor had possibly sent a message instructing the class that the exam had been cancelled (you wish) or postponed. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. No student was here and on an exam day. You felt like you had been left out of the loop. Is there something you’re missing here?

“Hello?” you weakly called out. Your voice sounded so small.

You felt like an idiot. For a split second you thought it was a prank. Now you hoped they didn’t get that “hello” on tape. That would be embarrassing; you meekly calling out “hello” to an empty classroom that normally housed 150 students (if everyone showed up that is).

You had waited for about an hour before packing up your stuff and heading out.

If anyone asked you, you would say the rest was a blur. Maybe it was when you exited the class that you noticed you were alone. Or maybe it was on the way back to your dorm when you noticed you were alone. Or maybe it was when you got inside your dorm and banged on everyone’s door screaming for everyone to “wake up” and “come out” is when you figured out you were alone.

Alone. Like alone alone. Not some cutesy Home Alone shit but seriously and utterly alone.

What the fuck.

\----------

But, that was four months ago. Since then, time has become really important to you. You marked each day meticulously off of the calendar. If everyone came back, they’d want to know what happened right? So, the amount of time you spent alone would be integral to the story when you relayed it. Maybe you would be interviewed on T.V. What if you had a biography written about you? What if the novel dedicated to your story turned into a movie adaption? You couldn’t help but suppress a smile at the thought. It was all too silly really.

You clicked your tongue as you opened the door to your house, preparing to set off for tasks you had in mind for the day. You had try staying in your room at your university; however, the lock systems for each of the rooms and buildings were powered electronically and required a swipe card for access. As soon as the power went off you were screwed. You house-hunted for awhile before you settled on a small house 10 miles outside of campus; that way, when everyone came back, you could make it back to campus before getting too behind in your schoolwork. You didn’t feel particularly bad about breaking in to the house. The key was under the mat which made the brick-through-the-window idea you had forming quietly in the recesses of your mind unnecessary. You had picked one that had a “For Sale” sign in the yard. Taking into account the dirtied shutters of the windows and the unkempt yard, the buyers were asking far too much for it anyways.

And just like that, you had your first house hassle-free. Most people your age would dream of being in your position. No payments, no down-payments, no bills, no nothing. You were golden.

You let the door swing closed behind you. You didn’t bother locking it. No one was around to break in anyhow. You glanced at the list of tasks in your hand.

“Not too bad,” you thought, “I can definitely finish all of this by 7 p.m.”

You tried really hard to make each of your days as exciting and different as the last. You made the mistake during the first couple of weeks of repeating the same routine over and over again. Wake up, do an hour of stretching, eat breakfast (usually cereal, always Fruit Loops), read your book, go for a walk, which always ended up as a futile search for other living souls; by the time everyone in your one-woman search party gave up it would be dark, you’d make dinner, or at least attempt to; you’d stretch more, you would pick up where you left off in your book from the morning time, then you would go to sleep.

That same routine of yours had almost ruined you. You had hoped the sameness of each day would give your life the structure it had been craving, but after you realized you had been reading the same passage of your book for 3 days straight you ripped it up and threw it away. No more of that. You vowed from then on that each day would be new and exciting. For Pete’s sake there was no one around. You could do whatever you wanted.

You could do whatever you wanted. And you were here. In the mall. For the umpteenth time looking at overpriced clothes in a store that you never would have dreamed of stepping in with your usually empty bank account. You looked at your hand:

**2:30 p.m: Clean up trash off of the highway**

That’s what you were supposed to be doing right now. But here you were.

You tried really hard to only take what you needed, but you were only human, and sometimes a particular necklace or a nice jacket caught your eye as you lingered around the mall or other various department stores. You weren’t a thief. You were always sure to carry around a pen and sticky notes, leaving “I-O-U”s in the place of something you took. You would write down the price of the item, whether it be clothes, food, or any random knick-knack or gadget that you momentarily felt you couldn’t live without. You looked at the list of numbers accruing on your pad.

“Damn.” You whispered. “I’m racking up quite the tab.”

 You weren’t perfect. Sometimes, you would skip the “I-O-U”s and clean up the store or restaurant you were in and in exchange you would help yourself to whatever you wanted. That way it was a win-win situation. The owners of the business would come back to a spotless shop and you would get what you needed. You were doing them a favor anyways. Once    **it**     happened there was a lot of shit just laying around. The cleaning wasn’t all too bad. It gave you a purpose temporarily and usually could make a day pass by relatively boredom-free. And even though you did somewhat hire yourself, making the entire matter more biased in your favor, your resume wasn’t the worse thing in the world. You would hire you.

You wandered further into the store, passing the check-out counter and heading towards the clearance bin, not like it was helpful anymore anyways; you were kind of working on a barter system nowadays. You fiddled with things that caught your attention, and those that didn’t. God, you were bored. You adjusted the straps of the backpack on your shoulders. Walking up to a mannequin you surveyed its face frozen with a look of commercially manufactured indifference.

“Kinda creepy,” You thought out loud. “But,” you whispered, “beggars can’t be choosers.”

You slowly slid your hand into the mannequin’s hard plastic one. It was so cold. This was nothing like an actual living person’s hand. You missed feeling the skin of someone who wasn’t yourself. A heartbeat that wasn’t your own simply reverberating in your ears. You felt embarrassed doing this but you had been thinking of it since Tuesday, and today was Friday. You were ready.

You stood on your tip-toes. The mannequin was a little too tall for you with its cement podium giving it a foot of height over you. You steadied its face with your two hands; one on either cold cheek. You lowered your eyes to its lips. You leaned closer, your eyelashes fluttering shut naturally as you felt the presence of its face nearing your own’s. The kiss wasn’t warm, nor was it inviting. It tasted like plastic and cleaning spray. It was only just a peck really. But you felt stupid nevertheless. To think you had hyped yourself up over this moment. You released the mannequin’s face and took a step back. You picked up your book-bag which had slumped on the ground beside you and began to make your way towards the store’s front entrance. You stopped mid-step and threw a look over your shoulder. You felt you couldn’t leave without saying anything. You didn’t feel that you had particularly made a connection with this mannequin despite your impromptu kiss, yet you couldn’t leave without at least bringing your interaction to a close.

“Uh, th-thank you.” You scurried out of the store without looking back. This wouldn’t be the last time you sought comfort from inanimate objects you knew this but it felt disconcerting nonetheless.

You walked out into the parking lot surveying the lot-full of empty cars left in the wake of the peoples’ absence. Using a car to get around had crossed your mind a couple of times; however, the sheer number of vehicles left lounging in the roads, highways, and intersections caused you to reconsider. Maneuvering around all of the abandoned vehicles would be a hassle in itself. Your adventures would have to remain by foot it seems. As you made your way through the parking lot, you saw a color flash in the corner of your eye behind a magazine and newsstand rack. You whipped your head around to stare at the place you thought you saw the movement come from. You had stopped walking and your hold on your book-bag straps tightened to the point your knuckles were turning white.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” Your voice cracked slightly.

Nothing responded except for the whistling of the wind as it blew your hair into your face. You waited. You could hear your breath so well in the silence. It sounded ragged.

One.

Two.

Three.

You tried taking a step closer but your feet wouldn’t budge. You could be in the actual presence of another living breathing human being and you were terrified. Tch. Chicken shit.

You tried again. You voice sounded a lot firmer this time.

“I’m not going to hurt you I promise.” You reassured. You took a step closer to the stand, holding your hand out as if to reaffirm your statement.

After waiting a few more seconds and hearing nothing. You cautiously walked around to the other side of the stand.

Nothing.

There was nothing there. And more importantly, no one. There was no one there.

You felt your bottom lip quiver as the beginnings of a sob racked your chest. You weren’t sure if you simply felt foolish or you had gotten your hopes up only to be cruelly let down with a crushing disappointment such as this. You could only hope that this trick of the eye would not be a recurring thing. You were not crazy. You planned on making it out of this ordeal with your mental state fully intact…or at least partially. Either way the tight feeling in your throat would not cease even as you departed from the parking lot, heading home.


	2. TWO (NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relevant tag warnings: Masturbation, Mental health, Body Image Issues

Could masturbating be considered a hobby? Because considering how much time you dedicate to getting yourself off, you could probably safely categorize your self-pleasuring as an enjoyable side-interest. You used to never consider yourself an “active” masturbator. It’s not that you never tried, it’s just that your inexperienced fingers would slide around your clit in a way that made you question whether or not it was feeling good; you would poke and prod at your virgin hole only to have your fingers scurry away at the onset of pain; and your mind simply couldn’t conjure up fantasies hot enough to get you slick with desire.

You remember the first time you saw someone masturbating. Well, more like caught. It was Eren Jaeger. He went to your high school. His mom and your mom were friends and when the Jaeger’s had a barbeque, your family was extended an invitation to go. You really didn’t want to go. Like, really really did not want to go. You had asked your mom to stay home. You didn’t know Eren well and the thought of even possibly being alone with him and having to make forced small talk was enough to make you want to stay home. You didn’t have friends at your school. In general, you didn’t have any friends at all. You were friendless. Okay. That’s enough. You didn’t have to relive those days if you didn’t want to. Where were you? Oh right, the barbeque. About an hour and one hot dog into the barbeque you had to pee really badly. Carla Jaeger knew how to make some good lemonade and three glasses in you felt their impact on your bladder. In hindsight, you probably should have just knocked first. If you had just knocked first you wouldn’t have opened the bathroom door and saw Eren Jaeger gripping his cock with his right hand and gripping the edge of the counter with the other. The strands of his brown hair were sticking to his sweaty forehead and you could make out the ever so subtle irregular thrust of his hipbones as they moved in tandem with his hand. His penis was so…purple? You didn’t think they could turn that color. It looked painful almost. And as embarrassing as that moment was, even worse you couldn’t stop thinking of how much he looked like his mom. All of this of course only happened in the course of a few seconds. You slammed the door as quickly as you opened it and rushed down the stairs. Your heart was beating so fast. You could feel your pulse throughout your entire body; especially in your pussy. Or, was that something else? You heard as Eren called out “HEY” behind you but you were already sprinting across the Jaeger’s lawn and on your way down the street back to your house. The next day at school you wondered if he would approach you. Maybe say something like “Hey, sorry you saw me masturbating but I hope you enjoyed the get-together! Come by another time!” Well, maybe not exactly that per say but you thought he would at least say something to alleviate the newfound awkwardness you felt each time you saw him now. He didn’t say anything at all. If anything, he completely ignored you like he (and everyone else) did every day. Maybe he didn’t see you? You weren’t sure.

Oh well. The only reason you were remembering that moment now was because the memory now served a purpose other than to invade your thoughts before you went to sleep.

Your fingers were wet as they worked away at your clit. Your breathing was erratic as you moaned into the smooth wooden surface of the headboard. You weren’t quite sure what this store was called; however, you knew that they sold box springs and mattresses at “criminally low prices!” (or so said the sign outside). You were on your way to the convenience store for more non-perishable food and you decided to take a break from your walk. Who knew that break would turn into you being naked on a display bed and moaning out as you pleasured yourself to kingdom come. You rocked your hips with your fingers as you gripped the top of the headboard with your other hand. One of the decorative pillows was caught between your legs and you used its tasseled edges to help you along.

“Ha-ha-aa”

You released your grip on the headboard and used your fingers to brush through your hair, petting your head in a comforting manner that felt like someone else was doing it. You wandered down your neck, squeezing it lightly, but not too hard as to leave a bruise. Your fingers came to pinch and pull at your pert nipple until you felt the telltale sign of your hedonistic pleasure session coming to an end. You didn’t bother swallowing down your moans as your orgasm ripped you apart. No one was here anyways, so why not. Sometimes you would get so carried away you would scream. This time you screamed out Eren’s name. You didn’t particularly like Eren during your high school days or even now. He was too unpredictable. His uncontrolled anger was volatile and you could only hope that it would never be directed at you. However, you did see his penis and you only really had that mental image to work with currently. You sighed. Your sticky body glistened in sweat as you tried to coast down from your high. Your head felt heavy and so did your eyelids as you stretched out on the comforter of the mattress. Your hands searched along the soft cotton lining in search of your discarded clothes. When you found them bunched up in the sheets towards the end of the bed, you pulled them onto your body while still laying down. You stared up at the paneled ceiling of the store, looking at the long row of lights that would have shone down bright fluorescent lighting upon you had the power still worked.

In these moments, after your endorphins coasted down and your heartbeat turned back to normal, you felt lonelier than ever.

You glanced at the clock on your wrist. 5 p.m. You had better hurry. Once it got dark outside, there were no streetlamps to light your way home. The dark and stillness felt so claustrophobic that travelling in the dark became impossible for you.

You smoothed out the sheets on the bed and propped up the decorative pillows as you had found them. To the right of the bed was podium with a small box on top. “Try it out! Tell us what you think!”

You grabbed a pencil from a cup on the stand and scribed out your review on a ripped piece of paper.

Very nice. Springs aren’t loud. Headboard is firm. Would buy.

You stuck your comment in the box on the podium with a slit on top for the reviews to be placed into.

The glass door was heavy as you pushed it open. You pulled your jacket closer to you as the wind whipped your hair across your face and nipped at your nose. It was getting chilly. Your temporary home lacked heating but there was a wood-burning stove in the kitchen. You would have to rely on that for the following months.

Making your way to the convenience store you reached into your knapsack and pulled out your respirator mask tightening it to your face. You found it in an auto shop. It was probably meant to protect the workers when they painted the body of a car, but now you used it to protect yourself from the rancid odor that hangs around the grocery stores. The meat in the delis probably started to decay rather quickly, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be resolved by covering your nose and mouth with the collar of your shirt. But now, after months of festering, the decaying food, spoiled milk, and various wastes in the markets produced a smell so bad that inhaling it for the first time left you sick for days. The smell clung to your clothes and wouldn’t seem to escape your nostrils even after washing your clothes thoroughly with boiled river water. Even with the mask attached snugly to your face you sometimes felt yourself on the verge of gagging. Staying here for long would not be an option after a while. You walked through the open doors of the convenience store. The first time you came here, back when it didn’t smell like shit, you had to open the doors with a stick. They were automatic sliding doors that ran off of electricity and prying them open was the only way to get inside. As you walked in, you couldn’t help by feel nostalgic as your mind conjured up a phantom ‘dinging’ of the doors that would have been present had    **it**     never happened. You picked up a wire basket from the dusty linoleum floor and set off for the canned food aisle. The canned food aisle was right beside the dairy aisle so you had to make this quick. Milk was covering the glass of the inside of the refrigerators that housed the cold produce and goods. Once the milk fermented, the plastic containers in which it was held ruptured coating the glass and the other foods in old, fermented milk. Someone couldn’t pay you to open those doors.

You tried to keep your breathing even as you put can after can of produce in the basket. Cut green beans? Yep. Creamed corn? Sure, why not. Sliced potatoes? Hell yeah.

You filled up your basket until your arms strained to hold up the weight and started your journey back home.

The walk back to your house was uneventful. You thought you saw something again but it was just the whipping of a flag on the manicured lawn of a suburban house. You saw things regularly nowadays. Sometimes it was a flicker of a light your mind concocted. Sometimes a sign would fall over only for you to find out the wind had done it. Just last Monday you swore up and down that a woman on a poster advertising for perfume blinked at you.

You turned the knob of the door to your house, pushing it open with the arm that wasn’t straining under the weight of the basket. You hummed to yourself softly as you made your way down the hallway and into the kitchen of your home. The humming became louder as you deposited the cans from the basket into the pantry and even louder as you placed the basket on the dining room table beside a note reminding you to take it back to the store in the morning. Anything to fill up the deafening silence at this point.

You padded back down the hallway and took a right passing under a doorway and into the small living room. You walked towards the window on the far-left wall and opened the shutters so that you could use the natural daylight coming from outside before it dimmed into night entirely. You picked up a marker that was resting on a nightstand beside a dingy floral covered couch. You walked to the wall on the opposite side of the room which lacked any semblance of décor except for one lone whiteboard positioned precisely in the center. You uncapped the marker with your teeth and added one more thing to the list of phrases accruing on the whiteboard’s surface.

**Evacuation(?)**

You had started doing this only about a week ago, so your list wasn’t as long as you would have liked but it was a start. It was easy to use a whiteboard to list your theories of why    **it**    happened because some of your initial ideas were so ridiculous that you had to have a writing surface that was easily erasable. You surveyed the other theories on the list. Some were crossed out because they had already been disproven with time. For example, “It’s a joke”, was considered at first but ruled out easily by the first week. Your second thought was that a disease wiped out all of the people but there were too many things wrong with that scenario. For one, if that were the case, then where were the bodies? Secondly, why would you be the only one who was immune? Nope. That wasn’t a plausible explanation. You thought that maybe the entire thing was a simulation and you were apart of some unwilling experiment. This was still lingering in your mind. You didn’t have the facts to prove or disprove it, yet you weren’t sure this was the case. For a split moment in time you though you had died and this was your worst fear manifested in your own personal hell. You try not to think of this one. Staying positive is really important at times like these. You pondered on the theory that perhaps aliens invaded Earth and abducted the humans. That last one was more of you just giving up, it seemed way too unlikely. But, then again. This entire situation you found yourself in seemed unlikely. Well, altogether that makes five theories, with three of them invalidated.

You put the cap back onto your marker and placed it gingerly back in its place.

It was bath night. You had fetched and heated the water in the morning when you had awoken and poured it into the bathtub, stopping the drain with an old rag. By now the water was freezing but the river was a long way from your house and taking the journey this late in the day seemed unwise.

You stripped out of your clothes, letting them cluster and pile together in a pool at your feet. You let the tip of your toe hover over the surface of the water.

“How should I play this,” you thought. “Inch by inch or should I do it all at once like ripping off a band-aid?”

You slowly let the water envelope you as you slide into the tub. It was cold, yeah, but bearable. You washed yourself slowly with care. Your hands using the soap to rub along the goosebumps of your arms, coming to massage along the crevices of your collarbones, and slowly washing downwards over your nipples that were pert from the cold and onto your stomach. You went at a leisurely pace. You didn’t want to think about how after this you didn’t have anything to do. You slide further down into the bathtub, letting the surface of the water stop just below your noise. You closed your eyes. It was peaceful.

After a while you stood up from your seated position and reached for the towel on the toilet seat. You wrapped it around yourself tightly and stepped out of the bathtub. You were in there for way too long; your fingers looked shriveled and pruned. Your dried yourself off and pulled on a long t-shirt to wear for bed. You propped your hands onto the marble counter of the bathroom sink and stared at yourself in the oblong mirror.

Did you look different? You couldn’t tell. Did you feel different? You couldn’t answer that question either. You don’t remember quite how you “felt” before   **it**     happened but maybe there was nothing to feel before now. If someone were to ask you how you felt right now; right in this moment as you stared at your reflection in the mirror, you would say indifferent. No. No, indifferent isn’t the right word. You felt “here”. Can that be a feeling? Can you feel that you exist? Is that something everyone feels on a day-to-day basis? The feeling of nothing else besides pure, unadulterated existence?

You had to think of something else. Constantly pondering the enigmas of your current emotional state was exhausting.

You focused instead on pulling at the skin on your cheeks. If you found others. No. Not if. WHEN you found others. Would they be disappointed in you? You were an average looking girl. Nothing really came off as particularly special or note-worthy about your appearance. Or at least, in your opinion. You would even go as far as to deliberate that you only looked average on “good-days”. You surveyed your lips; your eyes; your nose; every dimple, blemish, mole, or freckle you could find was taken into account. You glanced down at your body. Average. Average. You cupped one breast in your hand. Average. If you found someone in the same situation as you, how would they react to knowing that they are stuck with you unless the two of you found another person? At this point, you could care less who found you or vice versa. Their company would be delectable, like the most exotic and delicious of treats; one that only came out during a special time maybe a seasonal good; one that must be savored because it could be taken away just as soon as it was given to you.

You let your hands fall from their place on the contours of your face. You left the bathroom and headed to your room. It had been decorated to your specific tastes after a couple of days of moving in. Decorating the house took a few days and it gave you something to do. It killed time; and killing time was good. You had to be conservative though. It wasn’t like you had a team of movers at your disposal. The amount of décor in your home was limited to how much you could carry at once.

You slid back the quilt on your bed and nestled yourself snugly between the its soft folds. You stared at the ceiling for a long time before you fell asleep and when you finally did you didn’t dream.

\----------

Today is a bad day. You’ve had bad days before but today tops the cake. Over time you’ve become acclimated to the occasional hallucination; the rare moments in which your eyes slipped up tricking you into believing that something was there when it was not. What you haven’t become accustomed to, however, was the noises. No, you didn’t mean the noises the wind made as it rattled the shutters of the window against your house. Or the noise the buildings made as they settled into the foundation. No; those were natural. It started when you woke up. Actually, it was what woke you up. You heard someone calling your name. You ignored it at first until you remembered the reality of your situation and then you jumped out of bed as quickly as if you had been shocked by electricity. You scoured every inch of your house before you realized that your home was as empty as it was when you retired to sleep the night before. You were shaking as you made your bed afterwards. The voice was so distinct, so clear. You didn’t put it past your mind to conjure it up but you couldn’t let go of the realness of its pitch. The way it said your name so familiarly. You still hear it now.

You slipped on your clothes and headed out the door. You had to get out of the house. Your heart was still pounding. You had to get away from the place you heard the voice. For now, it was the only way to alleviate your anxieties.

You remember passing a movie theatre the other day. Your feet were heading in that direction before you knew it. Opening the doors to the theatre you breathed in the smell of stale popcorn and the rank smell of old butter. The nostalgia hit you hard. You missed this. You looked at the list of movies playing above the ticket booth and decided on one that sounded interesting. You jumped over the counter of the ticket booth and searched for the reel of tickets that went with your movie. Your tore one off and slid it onto the counter. You quickly scampered back over the edge of the counter.

“Thanks,” you huffed as you slid the ticket into your pocket.

You glanced at the arcade where young children would beg their parents for money only to waste it on the rigged crane-games and other prize games that were designed to manipulate children into sacrificing their parent’s money at the chance for an unattainable toy.

You plucked a piece of candy from behind the concession stand. It was wrapped and its only been a few months so it had to be edible, right? You tore open the wrapper and took a bite of the chocolate only to immediately spit it back out into your hand. Wrong. You threw the expired candy into a trash can before opening the double doors and letting yourself be enveloped in the darkness that was the screening room. You switched on a flashlight from your bag and found a seat comfortably in the back, closest to the exits. You didn’t know a lot about this movie that was meant to be playing; however, you were positive you could imagine a plot and characters using the title of the film. You sat back in the darkness, your flashlight pointed at the screen, creating a white halo in the middle of its surface.

 You sat there for about two hours, or at least an appropriate amount of time you thought a movie would last. You had used your imagination to make the dark screen of the theatre come to life. The love story you conjured up was tasteful and had sacrifice. The plot was excellently paced and beautifully imagined. The setting, oh, the setting was so beautiful. You couldn’t believe they had the budget for a movie like this! It was amazing. You whispered a few words of praise to yourself for your excellent directing skills.

You exited the theatre feeling better than when you had arrived. The “movie” had eased your mind and allowed you to finally comfortably relax since this morning’s incident riled your nerves up.

You walked down the street. You were ready to go back home.

He was standing in the middle of the street when you saw him. You weren’t sure why you thought someone up like him in particular but you didn’t mind. He was beautiful. His skin was smooth. His onyx hair which was styled in a somewhat old-fashioned undercut complimented him well. You couldn’t tell if he was glaring at you or if his eyes were naturally just that narrowed, but they were such a striking grey color. His clothes clung naturally to the contours of the muscles of his body. He was fantastically gorgeous; the absolute epitome of men everywhere; simply the most handsome man you have ever seen, or imagined. But too bad he wasn’t real. You stood still for what seemed like ten minutes but was actually more like a few seconds. Its almost as if the both of your movements mirrored each other’s because he stood watching you frozen as well. You clicked your tongue and turned your attention to the left in the direction where your house was.

“I’m late for lunch,” you stated out loud, so matter-of-factly.

Your imagination was charged today. But, imagining him wasn’t a waste. When you go to the movies tomorrow, you would make sure to make him the main character.  

You made your way home not looking back.

\----------

(Levi’s POV)

We both stood staring at each other for what seemed like forever.

I was wondering who would make the first move, who would garner up the courage to break the silence. What do you say to someone when you haven’t been around people for so fucking long. Too fucking long. I’ve been told my social skills were lacking and that was before everyone disappeared, so they must be fucked to hell by now. “God, say something,” I thought. All this time looking for someone, anyone, and I finally found them and I have nothing to goddamn say?

Before I could evade the pregnant silence with my voice, she spoke.

_“I’m late for lunch.”_

And no sooner had she said it she was walking in the opposite direction. I watched her form recede down the road until she was nothing more than a dot on the horizon.

“What the actual fuck?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This story is somewhat slow-paced but hopefully that adds to the drama, no?  
> Welp, Levi has made his first appearance in the story. Also kudos to the Reader for being a trooper! She's having a rough time dealing with her current situation.  
> And as you all very well know kudos, comments, and helpful criticisms are all helpful (for the story and my ego)  
> Until next time, Reader!


	3. THREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Make sure your'e aware of the tags! I did not mark this as 'NSFW' but there is an element of non-consensual touching present!

Nothing went unobserved from Levi’s gaze. Not when you dropped a book in the bookstore and flinched from the noise it made. Not when you blushed when passing the adult section in the old shop that sold used DVDS. Not even when you yanked down your pants in the middle of the department store and swapped them for a new pair on a rack because you thought no one was looking. You were interesting to watch to say the least. He couldn’t help but revel in how refreshing it was to hear a sound that wasn’t just the wind or his own breathing. The things you would say to yourself lacked the inhibitions one would find in a conversation between two people. If you thought it you said it. Your personal thoughts and feelings wholly on display for what you thought to be an empty audience, but he was there, consuming it greedily, and with rapture. It felt weird to think that he didn’t even know your name, yet he could recite the date of your first menstrual cycle and he knew in graphic detail the problem you had wetting the bed as a child. As stated before your lack of reservation when by yourself proved quite entertaining at times like these.

He watched you now as you pushed a creaky shopping cart around the hardware store. He saw you this morning fucking around with some loose boards on the side of your house. With winter creeping up slowly, it was no wonder you sought out ways to resolve this nuisance before the cold could descend upon you without remorse. Without regular maintenance, your house would be reduced to mere rubble with the onset of creeping vegetation and rot as nature would reclaim your house along with other buildings that were not meant to be without continual proper upkeeping. He clicked his tongue as you obliviously searched the supply of hardware materials for the right tools you would need. Your unfamiliarity with the task you had set before yourself could not be more apparent.

“Stop gawking at the power drills and grab the nails and a hammer,” Levi couldn’t help but growl under his breath as he reprimanded you for your lack of know-how.

It would have been so easy to just reveal himself from his hiding place and assist you in your venture but, no, he couldn’t. Not yet anyways.

\----------

It wasn’t a part of his original plan to watch you. Honestly, it wasn’t. He would even go as far as to say he didn’t like you after his first couple days of observing you. You were young and stupid and reminded him of long-since forgotten days of naivety. But you were something. You had blood and a pulse. You existed. And that was enough for him. More than that; it excited him in every possible way imaginable. For the first few days, he had watched you from afar. He wasn’t scared of you or anything. Quite the contrary, he knew without a semblance of a doubt that he could overpower you in a heartbeat. Your body looked like it was in the developing stage of a young woman. Maybe early twenties? You could never possibly think of besting him in a match of physical strength. He lessened the distance he kept between the two of you over time, getting closer and closer with the passing days; however, this only worsened his growing dependence on you as an object of interest.

He wasn’t sure how he justified his daily observance of you. In the beginning, he probably told himself that it was to assess the measures he would need to take in order to confront you. Your mental state had obviously taken a severe blow from the prolonged absence of civilization. Not like he was one to talk though. Months without human contact and there’s finally another being with whom to coexist and he’s watching her from the fucking woods. There’s a high possibility that in your first encounter he didn’t think you were real either. Months without even a hint of another human soul being present on this Earth and for you to just pop out of nowhere seemed far-fetched. Not to mention the indifferent way you brushed him off made him question the amount of reliability he could place into his own perception of what was right in front of him. You made him question his sanity and that in itself was reason enough for him to dislike you in the beginning. Following you to your house wasn’t too difficult. It was a couple miles west from where your paths first intersected. Also, you talked to yourself. Loudly. He watched from the edge of the woods as you went into your house and shut the door behind you. You were a stupid little girl. You didn’t even lock the door. He stayed out there for most of the night before he saw the retreating light of the last candle being blown out in your home. As the chilly embrace of darkness wrapped around him he had still to answer his own question of why he hadn’t approached your shack-of-a-home yet. It was so easy: All he had to do was step up the wooden stairs of your front porch and knock on the door. He didn’t even have to knock if he didn’t want to. He could just walk right in. But he didn’t and he wouldn’t (at least not yet).

\----------

So, just like that his question remained unanswered and like the first few moments within waking up from a bad dream it was as quickly forgotten as it was conceived. He would be back the next day anyways. And he did come back. And he kept coming back. And after a while, watching you just became a sort of entertainment for him. He didn’t consider himself much of a television-watcher before the people disappeared, but you were like his own personal T.V. show. Hell, you were better than cable. When your day started, so did his. Your routine varied during the day. Good. This was good. It kept him interested. Not like he had much to do anyways. He couldn’t remember exactly how he used to fill the hours; back when free-time was considered something of rareness and meant to be relished. Since everything had gone to shit, his life was nothing but free-time. Wasting the hours of the day waiting for something, anything, to happen. That’s how he had spent the past several months. Waiting. He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for exactly – the people to come back; for insanity; for death. It is quite possible that he was waiting for any one of those scenarios to happen. The purpose was drained from his life, not to say he inherently had one in the beginning. But then again that was before he happened upon you. At this point it might be too soon to say your existence gave his life a renewed meaning, but it would be foolish to not acknowledge the feelings you stirred deep within him.  

After you had retrieved all of the correct materials (much to Levi’s approval) you would need for the refurbishing of the outward appearance of your house, you left the shop heading home.

Levi followed as you made your regular detours on your journey home. The places you visited had no parallels or similarities that could tie them together. Whenever you deviated from your path home, it never had a specified purpose other than the fact that it momentarily captured your interest.

This was new. Levi watched as you stopped outside of a white residential house a mile or so outside the town’s border. It was a nice house. Definitely upper-class. The people who had lived here were unquestionably loaded; this undisputable fact further enunciated by the fountain, now overgrown with weeds, in the front yard and the empty three-car garage adjacent to the house with its windows coated in a film of dirt and grime. Levi grimaced.

You remained stationary outside the residence, your neck craned upwards staring at the second story and the beautifully ornate windows that decorated its exterior.

Levi couldn’t help but grow agitated at your prolonged lack of action.

“Do something. If you want it take it. Who is there to stop you?” He voiced his impatience internally. What consequences could you possibly face. There was no law anymore; no need for belief of higher morality and ethics. The world was as you saw it; law and punishment were only whispers of an already forgotten way of thinking.

You let your fingers wander over the smooth marble railing of the entryway to the house. Levi watched as you shimmied the handle of the doorknob a couple times before concluding that it was locked. You walked over to one of the lower hanging windows and tugged on the handles of the window sill, attempting to open the window wide enough for you to wriggle through. After a couple minutes of tireless yanking away at the handles of the sill, you had only risen the window a couple inches higher than what it had previously been; nowhere near enough space for you to squeeze through. You sighed. At this moment, Levi expected you to turn around and give up on your internal pursuit. What he didn’t anticipate was you digging about in your bag and pulling out the hammer you had procured from the hardware store.

You gripped the handle of the hammer firmly in your hand before squeezing your eyes shut tightly. You twisted your body, your arm rearing back slightly behind your head before coming down on the glass of the window pane.

It took a few hits for the glass to fully break, leaving a jagged square of sharp glass poking from either side of the window. You took off the jacket you had been wearing and begun to clean off the sides of the window, letting the glass fall onto the grass below your feet. Once the window was freed of glass to where you wouldn’t get injured from the keen, razor-sharp edges of the shattered fragments, you smoothed out your jacket along the sill and placed one foot on the ledge using it to propel yourself into the inside of the home.

Levi had to admit he was impressed. As soon as he was sure you were fully emerged in the foyer of the house and unable to hear nor see him, he left his crouched position behind a deserted car and made his way over to the broken window. The glass crunched under his shoes as he lowered himself below the ledge, just enough to where his eyes could peer over the sill and into where you now stood in an ostentatiously decorated sitting room.

He would be lying if he had said he wasn’t intrigued by what you would do next. During his entire period of watching you, he had yet to see you comb through the abandoned personal items of others. Whether it be out of respect or a lack of interest he wasn’t sure. He could theorize why though. It was one thing to be utterly alone, it was a completely other matter entirely to be surrounded constantly by the memories of human presence. He could understand why until now your ventures never strayed into the private world of those who used to be here too.

You looked upwards at the pictures on the walls. They were organized by date with the later pictures being closer to the entrance and the more recent pictures receding down further into the hallway. Your eyes first fell onto a grainy sepia-colored photo of an infant dressed in a puffy dress. Her bonnet was too big for her growing form and it fell slightly in front of her left eye. This didn’t seem to upset her though; her smile was wide with untamed glee. Her small pursed lips looked slightly wet with the constant gleam present on the mouth of children when their dribble would go unwiped by their parents. You don’t know why this particular picture drew your attention. Maybe the innocent happiness the picture radiated evoked a spark of recollection from you. You used to feel like this at one point in your life. Not recently of course. But, everyone has at least once in their lifetime felt a moment void of strife and pain, even if it only lasts a spilt second, this second forever imprints itself into one’s memory before the harshness of life gradually erases it away. You smiled. Children always look so happy. Of course, that’s when they’re not pissing themselves or crying. You moved on further down the row of family photos.

You passed pictures of weddings, family outings, graduations, birthday celebrations, and shared holidays. Family moments captured in one frozen instant that was meant to serve as a reminder of the love this household had for one another. And now the only person who would be seeing that is you and only by chance; you had no idea who these people were. You felt invasive. You were not meant to be intruding on their most intimate of memories, even if they were conveniently displayed in a rectangular formatting. These pictures weren’t meant for you to be the one viewing them; the one who could look upon them and feel sentimental; the one who could smile at memories that weren’t yours to share. But if you didn’t, who would? No one else was here to remember these people. Who knows; maybe that’s for the best. These could have been terrible people, you don’t know, but you do know that they used to be here and now they’re not and no one will recall them ever existing.

You turned around, letting your back slide against the wall. Your face sought refuge in your hands as you exhaled shaky breath after shaky breath. Salty tears rolled down your cheeks and hit the dusty hardwood panels of the floor beneath you. You hiccupped as you bit your hand attempting to quiet yourself. Was there a purpose to this though? No one was around to reprimand your crying or tell you to pull yourself together. No one was here to comfort you or dry your tears. Your shoulders shook violently as you sobbed. What was the point of this? Any of this? You knew what you were getting yourself into as soon as you wandered onto the front lawn of this house.

Levi watched only mildly surprised as your loneliness tore itself from your body, escaping as fat droplets from your eyes. He’s seen you cry a few times. He would be more surprised if you didn’t cry. Anyone who found themselves in your situation would eventually fall prey to the despair that this sort of solitude brings. Yeah sure you can do anything you want considering the circumstances – steal the most designer clothes, drive the cars you could never had afforded to, go inside a bank and hold millions of dollars in your hands; but, what is that in comparison to a person with whom to talk to. Even the most introverted of souls would gladly remove a limb just to be able to converse with another living, sentient being.

After two hours passed and your seated form still had yet to revert to a standing position, Levi dusted the dirt off of the knees of his pants and stood up. He studied your form until he saw the giveaway deep up-and-down motions of your shoulders as you slept. He stretched out his arms, pulling his elbow behind his head until he heard a crack of released tension from his joints. He groaned in satisfaction. He hopped the ledge of the window with ease and walked over to your slumbering form. Your head was bowed over to the side, resting on your right shoulder. Your mouth hung slightly agape and the strands of your hair clung to the sticky residue your tears left on your face. Levi bent down and used the crook of his finger to pull a strand of hair out of your ajar mouth. He ‘tsked’.

“If you were tired you should have left,” he mumbled, scooping his arms under the bend of your knees and letting them rest in the crook of his elbows. He lifted you up effortlessly, watching from the corner of his eye as your head fell into the crevice of his collar bone. Your wet face and moist lips pressed into the taut skin of his neck making his heartbeat quicken. He navigated about the house looking for a spare room to settle you into. He took the stairs to the second floor where he found a guest bedroom two doors down to the left.

Levi adjusted you in his arms as he used the tip of his boot to ease open the door. He walked straight to the bed centered in the middle of the room and deposited you amidst the cushiony pillows and satin sheets. He had to ease himself from your sleeping person. Somehow on his way up here, your arms had managed to wrap themselves around his neck and he had to pry them off delicately lest he wake you. And that wouldn’t be good. Explaining his situation would be too complicated; for now, it’d be best if you just didn’t know he was here, even if the thought of another person would cause your heart such joy. Then again, this delight in your heart would have lessened or soured into nonexistence had you known said person had stalked you for the past several weeks.

When your arms were released from their entanglement around his neck, he eased himself off of the mattress of the bed making sure his movements didn’t dip the bed and alert you to his presence. No sooner had he pulled away then he was right back by your side. You had stirred, stretching your arms above your head and causing your shirt to raise up, giving him a perfect view of your stomach. He could see the edge of the bottom half of your breasts, your nipples still tucked securely below your shirt. Just an inch higher and your bare breasts would be on display for him. Levi swallowed. It was one thing to watch you. But to touch you, even if only to caress you, that was where the line had to be drawn. All this time spent watching you and he never thought of the boundaries he would have to set when around you. This was his mistake. No one here to reprimand him for his actions; no one to wish consequences upon him for his wrongdoings; no sort of justice would be secured for you if he chose to ravish you right now. This wasn’t good; he had to stop before he crossed into territory that wouldn’t let him repent. Yet he could still feel his hands reaching out towards you. First, he started with your face. The tips of his fingers used to skim against the delicate apples of your cheeks, watching intently as your eyelashes fluttered with the feeling of something stroking your face. He let his thumb trail down to fondle the soft skin of your bottom lip. Would he allow himself more? Of course he would. The palms of his hands came to rub up the sides of your stomach, rubbing away at the goosebumps the cold air had caused. His hands continued their gentle kneading of your skin until they reached the hem of your shirt. He used his thumbs to ease your shirt higher up your body until the shirt’s edge stopped at your chest. He swore he could hear a small voice chastising him, begging him to stop now while it wasn’t too late.

You mumbled something under your breath. Your sleeping body straining to flip onto your stomach confused as to what (or in this case, whom) was blocking you. You whined, pushing your body away from Levi’s and further into the bed as your body writhed attempting to turn over.

Levi halted his movements. He froze waiting for you to open your eyes and catch him. This was a sign he had to stop. He had taken things too far. He removed his hands from your abdomen and gently pulled the hem of your shirt down to its original position.

He had gotten too close he was positive of that much. However, this was an enlightening experience. It taught him of the dangers that accrued from not setting limits into place. The thin line between what’s right and wrong was blurring to the point where only you were left in the wake of these conflicting principles. He wanted you and if that was wrong he didn’t want to be right.

A small part of himself knew that he would find himself back here again in this same situation. The boundaries were a precaution and a necessary one at that, but what could stop a man who had already fallen so far. But he was sure of one thing as he covered you in a quilt and closed the door quietly behind himself – he was not satisfied.

He went down the stairs back into the entrance of the home. He picked up your bag of tools, which you had left by the doorway and set out for your house. It was likely that he was just doing this to ease the residual feelings of guilt he still had eating away at his conscious or maybe it just bothered him that you hadn’t gotten to it yet.

He steadied the nail as he hammered the dislodging planks of wood from the side of your house back into place. He removed the old rusting nails and tossed them into a small pile he had accumulating with decaying wooden boards that once might have complimented the outwardly appearance of the house but now only suffered from wood-rot.  

He huffed out a breath, wiping the sweat from his forehead, after the last board of your abode had either been removed or restored.

“Why’d you have to pick this house?” He slung the sack of tools over his back as he worked on cleaning up the pile of waste he created.

A few hours had passed by since he started the endeavor you had meant to do at the beginning of your day. Once he was finished he made sure to return to the house he had left you slumbering in. Upon arriving, he opted to wait outside, leaning against the trunk of a tree, out of view from the house and main road. He would wait there until morning or until he saw you leave the house. The rustling of the leaves above him created the white noise needed to soothe him into a state of relaxation. He didn’t fear falling asleep in this position; his insomnia wouldn’t have allowed it even if he wanted to. He closed his eyes yet still the image of your sleeping face invaded his thoughts. As the smell of you clung to his clothes and skin he tilted his head back onto the bark of the tree, letting his hands cusp the back of his head. For now, with the wind shaking the trees around him and the knowledge of your presence resting comfortably less than two-hundred feet away from him, he waited. 

\----------

The bright, morning light streaming through the window had caused you to wake up this morning. Your eyes squinted and your hand attempted to cover your face in order to lessen the intensity of the beam of light on your still groggy, sleep-ridden self. You sat up in bed stretching your calves out further into the depths of the covers, rolling the joints of your ankles in circles until the dull ache of deep slumber subsided. You had slept well last night; better than you had in a while actually. It was not until you swung your legs over the edge of the bed, your toes skimming the cold hardwood floors, that you realized this was not your house. Your initial reaction was of confusion. You remembered stumbling upon (more like breaking into) this place on your way home; however, you couldn’t for the life of you recollect the needed information to fill in the gaps of your memory for what happened afterwards. You could only assume that after you had gotten tired you retreated further into the interior of the house until you discovered a suitable place to hunker away for the night. Much like Goldilocks, you had rifled through other’s personal belongings only to rest in their beds. But unlike Goldilocks there was no one around to chide you for your intrusion or even care.

When you returned home the same logic that was applied to justify your having woken up in a different location was used to explain the reason why your house was not in the tattered shape you had left it the previous day. With the lapsing of your memory, the only explanation you could offer yourself was that you had fixed the outward walls of your home earlier in the day and just failed to recollect such a trivial task as the mundaneness of the chore left no impression on your memory. And anyhow, constant speculation never left you in a good state these days. Each day spent by yourself blended more into one another until they became an eternal feeling of déjà vu; an unceasing feeling of tedious familiarity; an endless day that even the rise and descent of the sun each dawn and dusk couldn’t mend.

The next couple of days passed by in the relative sameness that characterized each of your days. You could only do so much to vary your routine before the deviations you enacted to your schedule became as humdrum and repetitive as the habitual goings-on every day.

Today you had woken up later than normal, which left the completion of your chores delayed. You got out of bed as you did every day, pulling your nightshirt over your head and changing into your outfit for the day. You made your bed and brushed your teeth with a canteen of water you kept on a nightstand next to your bedside, saved from one of your excursions to the river. After your teeth were cleaned and your hair was brushed of its tangles and matts, you would make a simple meal. Your options weren’t plentiful seeing as how you were entering the first beginning months of winter and the lack of ripe fruits and vegetables was telling of the coming cold. You looked through your cabinets and settled upon a dented can of preserved peaches. It wasn’t an amazing way to start the day but it held enough nutritional value to get you through the bulk of your chores until it was time for dinner. Sometimes you would read as you ate. If you didn’t feel in the mood for that you would sit in silence and listen for the sound of birds outside the window.

Once breakfast, or in this case, lunch, had been cleaned from the dining room table and properly disposed of, you would start with the first chore on your list: Retrieving fire wood. Keeping the fire in your home burning was an important means of cooking and heat insulation. While you did have an axe, you mostly relied on fallen limbs, twigs, and brush to keep your fire burning at a steady rate. It had been raining incessantly for the past two days and finding dry tinder was an issue. Wet logs wouldn’t burn and leaves, even if they were dry enough, created too much smoke. You found several pieces of lumber that had managed to escape the drenching wetness the rain had imposed upon the area, but the meager amount you found could only last you for about a day and a half. If it continued raining at this pace, you would have to eventually search through stores for other means of flammable material in which to supply your fire with. But, you would get to that when it comes. Right now, the second item on your daily to-do-list was fetching water from the river. The most tedious of chores – fetching river water was a task that had to be completed each day. The long trek to the river combined with the heavy metal pail you had to lug, made this without a doubt, the more burdensome of responsibilities.

The walked to the river was as uneventful as it always was. The mid-day sun beamed brightly onto you, warming the top of your head. You played games with yourself to keep yourself entertained; however, it was hard to remain an enthusiastic participant when there was no one around to share a victory or a loss with.

Arriving to the river, the first thing you noted was the higher elevations of water. The water, which normally flowed lazily and comfortably situated further down the sandy bank now surged rapidly, almost entirely engulfing the bank and the grassy marsh surrounding the water’s edge. You gripped the handle of the bucket making your way carefully down the steep sloped hill towards the brink of the river.

You stayed sloshing in the river longer than you originally intended. With your pant legs rolled up, you could feel the tickle of fish brushing the sides of your ankles as they retreated further into the river’s depths, seeking out areas of the inlet that weren’t disturbed by your trudging feet. You giggled, letting your fingertips lightly brush the surface of the water. When your sensations felt thoroughly content with the serenity that nature provided and the revitalizing quality that it possessed, you wiped your wet fingers on the fabric of your shirt and waded back to the river bank with your pail in tow.

Squeezing the bottom of your pant legs of excess water you felt ready to head home.

The wet, muddied slope of the hill combined with the slick underside of your boots yielded an excellent combination for why you couldn’t seem to find enough friction to secure a proper foothold in your climb. The weight of your bucket laden with water did not help prevent your fall either. Once your first foot slipped, the rest of your descent happened almost like a synchronized dance. Funny to think there could be any semblance of synchronization to your incoordination. Everything seemed to slow down as your perception of time became as distorted as your sense of gravity and uprightness. You could only close your eyes to the blues and greens as the sky and ground swirled together in your vision. You felt your limbs in a way in which you never had before: contorted and twisted. Your breathing caught in your throat in anticipation of the pain that would soon come as your descent came to its inevitable conclusion. When you tumbled back into the river your head hit the rocks before anything else could. Even with your eyes closed and the water swirling around your injured body you could feel the warm sticky blood matting your hair to your head. Your head felt heavy and muddled. When the thought of getting up couldn’t manifest itself into anything further than a thought, your body lacking the means to complete the simple task your brain implored of it, you lay motionless in the river. The sharp pains racked your tired body and for a split second you thought of calling out for help, but your mouth wouldn’t produce any sounds other than broken moans and whispers. And who would be around to hear your cries for help anyways? It was a stupid idea, but it was all you had. You weren’t sure how long you lay there before you let yourself succumb to the blackness that was beckoning you on the horizon of your subconscious. It felt like an eternity, but in reality, it only took a matter of seconds for you to drift into a state of welcoming unconsciousness; a state that promised a refuge from the agonizing discomfort that tormented your body. It felt good to slip away and when you woke up, you prayed to be in a place where people existed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, the pacing of a good story illudes me. :(  
> Oh well, like always, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! At the moment, I am just working on fixing the kinks out of the next chapter!  
> And you know the drill - comments, kudos, and constructive criticism (you know I need it) is always appreciated! Farewell, you beautiful souls. I hope to have delighted you even if it was just for a fraction of a moment!


	4. FOUR (MILD NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, there are elements of non-consensual touching. I added the 'NSFW' tag this time around because it is slightly more graphic. So, as always be aware of tags!

“SHIT!”

Levi raced down the slope of the river’s bank, his arms pumping in unison with his legs to get to your side faster. He slid to his knees reaching out to pull your face from the murky rust-colored water. He leaned down letting the hood of his ear hover over your parted lips. He pulled away only once he felt your breathing rustle the delicate hairs of his skin. He cradled your head in his arms surveying the severity of your injuries. A very prominent gash ran its way across your forehead, starting at the base of your hairline and creeping its way to rest above your right eyebrow. He pulled you to the stable ground of the riverbank and took of his shirt, ripping off a piece of the fabric to dab at the blood coagulating on the crown of your head. When most of the blood had been wiped away, he stretched out the strips of the garment so that he could wrap it around your head in a makeshift bandage. He examined your dirtied face; your moist lips; your hair that was covered in shit, twigs and leaves entangled throughout your tresses. He looked down your body. One of your boots had escaped your foot during your fall and the ankle underneath your sopping wet sock was already starting to swell. The next step was crucial. He had to be careful to avoid straining your injuries further. He picked you up from the ground, supporting your head with his shoulder and using the hand that wasn’t holding your ass to elevate your wounded ankle.

‘How did this happen,’ he thought. One minute you’re prancing about in the stream and the next he’s fishing your limp body out of the water.

“I look away for one second and you go and get yourself hurt.” He glanced at your insensible face as it rested on him. He shook his head. “What you do to me,” he muttered.

He carried you back home. As he stepped through the entryway to your home he shifted you in his hold so that your injury would not knock against the rigid structure of the doorway. He held you as he made his way through your house towards your bedroom, almost as if memory was compelling him to do so. He situated you on your bed so that your ankle was resting on a pillow and your back was parallel to the mattress’s surface.

Once he was sure you were in a comfortable enough position he left your limp body on the bed and went about your house searching for materials that could provide for adequate medical treatment.

He returned to your room with the spoils of his search: A spool of thread, a canteen of water, a tin of rubbing alcohol, a kitchen knife, an unsterilized needle (which would have to be disinfected), a cloth rag, and strips of gauze.

He was going to have to remove your clothes and clean you if you wanted to avoid infection to your cut. Even more importantly, the onset of hypothermia was a current threat to your immune system. The wet clothes that clung to you did little to insulate your body temperature and your body was losing heat faster than could be replenished. With little ways to create artificial heat, it was imperative that he removed your damp clothes as soon as possible. He didn’t hesitate to begin; it wasn’t like last time. His justification was solid enough not to have to give a second thought to the ethics of his undressing you. Time was of the essence. Hypothermia could ravage your body in a time frame of thirty minutes or less. Additionally, in both of your current situations, you didn’t have access to antibiotics, so unless you wanted to suffer the consequences of an untreated cut, he surmised he was doing you a favor.

He propped you up on the headboard, placing a pillow snugly behind the dip in your back so that your muscles wouldn’t strain in the unnatural position. He removed the bloodied temporary bandage he had tied around your wound. It wasn’t bleeding as badly as when he had first found you, which would have been good news had your pulse not been beating so lethargically. He dipped the rag’s edge into the canteen of water and gently blotted at the gash on your head. He used the other end of the rag to coat in alcohol and applied light pressure to the center of your cut. Had you not been knocked out it probably would have hurt like a bitch. He grabbed the roll of gauze and wrapped your head until he felt a sufficient amount of pressure had been applied to your laceration. He reached onto the nightstand and grabbed the knife. He held the tip of the end of your shirt between his thumb and forefinger and begin cutting a straight line upwards towards the collar of your shirt, being careful not to let the cool metal of the blade touch your skin. Once your shirt had been cut, he delicately shrugged the fabric from each of your shoulders until it bunched up around either of your wrists. He lifted your arms, pulling the garment the rest of the way from your upper body. He adjusted your posture so that your hips were slightly lower than their previous sitting position, giving him enough room to unzip and pull down the pants from your slumped form. Once he got down to your ankles, he eased your legs out of the holes of your jeans. Your underwear was easy enough to rid you of. Using the blade, Levi ripped away at your panties until the scraped heaps of cloth no longer obstructed him for what he had planned next.

He laid you back down flat onto the bed. Using several quilts, he layered you in warmth to help restore your depleted body heat. The edges of the blankets were securely tucked into your sides. He hated to leave you but he could not neglect to clean you at this stage in your recovery. While he felt conflicted about leaving you alone he had to return to the river and get water for a bath and by the looks of the growing bump on your head, he didn’t predict you would be waking up anytime soon.

He jogged back to the river, picking up the discarded bucket somewhere in a patch of dense cattails. Knowing you were waiting for his return spurred him not to linger. Once the container was filled, he made haste on his way back to your home.

It took about ten minutes to warm up the water. He had to boil it to kill the bacteria, but leave enough time afterwards for it to cool. Once he could dip his fingers into the sterilized liquid without scalding himself, he poured it into the bathtub.

He returned to your bedroom, removing the thick covering of blankets, and hoisting your still body into his arms. Walking into the bathroom adjacent to your room, he gradually set you down into the heated water of the bath.

He washed your hair with care, paying special attention to removing the bits of dirt and debris that were scattered about your locks. He kneaded his fingers throughout your hair, letting his fingernails lightly graze at the skin of your scalp. He angled his arms to keep your head from lolling to the side. He tilted your head backwards, using one hand to cusp the bend of your neck and the other to cover your eyes, preventing the soapy suds from entering them. He poured the water slowly onto your head, watching the tiny streams cascade down your strands and your neck, where they eventually beaded as droplets on the tips of your nipples before falling down your ribcage, sliding back into the water where they emanated.

He lathered the soap onto your body using small circles to encourage the circulation of blood throughout your veins. He massaged up your arms, moving down into the crevices of your armpits, and over your chest. Your once smooth skin was now littered with cuts and bruises. His hand continued its descent lower into the water, washing over your stomach, rubbing over the puckered skin of your belly-button, and onto the sharp bones of your pelvis. He didn’t stop until he felt the curls of your pubic hair beginning to tickle the tips of his fingers. Pausing, he lowered his head down to the crevice where your neck and collar bone met. He inhaled deeply, letting his lips create a path of open-mouthed kisses on your shoulder leading to the soft skin behind your ear. He sucked your earlobe between his parted lips, sucking and nibbling on the fleshy skin until it was red. He exhaled softly, moist breath hitting the fold of your ear. He let his hand continue its path further, spreading the skin of your lips, grazing over the sensitive bud of your clit until he felt his finger press against the opening of your vagina. He pulled away, repeating the same gentle rubbing motion with his hand, only stopping when he was certain your sweet femininity was just as clean as the rest of you were.

He rested his head on the protruding bone of your shoulder blade. The tips of his ebony strands moistened as they collected the water that hung on your back. His palm slithered to cover the spot on your chest where your heartbeat could be felt. Your pulse felt so slow and rhythmic compared to his that raced with sinful excitement. He grabbed your chin and titled your head back to capture your lips with a tender kiss, moving his lips softly against yours. It didn’t bother him that your lips remained motionless against his; while he was confident he would make you feel good in due time, this was more for him. A reward you could say. The tense muscles of his jawline ached as the slow kiss had him restraining not to press harder into you; to devour you; to take more and satiate the greedy beast pulsating inside of him. He pulled away with a longing sigh, releasing his lips from yours. With his payment having been collected, he stood up. Walking over to the opposite end of the tub, he pulled out the stopper from the drain. He bent down and picked you up, the wetness of your nude body caused his clothes to stick to him, creating a sheen of transparency in his white shirt. He took you back to your room where he patted you dry with a fluffy lint-covered towel. He slipped an oversized t-shirt over your now dry, dirt-free body. He wrapped your ankle in a covering of gauze. It was the best he could do for now and the constant pressure would relieve some of the swelling.

Removing the bandage from your head he stared at the cut with dark red blood crusting around its edges. He grabbed the rubbing alcohol and needle. After he thoroughly coated the needle in the antiseptic, rubbing its surface until it could be deemed disinfected, he reached for the spool of thread and began to thread the string through the eye of the needle. He used his teeth to cut the excess string before setting to work on closing the gap in your head. He steadied your head and concentrated on the in-and-out motion of the needle sewing your wound closed.

The stiches came out slightly askew. That was to be expected; he wasn’t a professional after all. Nonetheless, they would be enough to let your cut mend properly and he was satisfied with that. Placing a fresh bandage on your head, he bent down and pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead.

He pushed some of the pillows of the bed aside as he pulled back the edges of the bed spread enough to place you amongst its soft fleecy folds. Once he deemed you as contented as you could be perceived while in your comatose state, he crawled in behind you, wrapping his arms underneath yours and easing your back to rest against his firm chest. You fit into the contours of his body so perfectly the two of you could have resembled a puzzle after completion. Your wet hair pressed into Levi’s nose and your deep breathing encouraged him to relax into you.

The events of today proved to him that you needed him. You could have died. And you certainly would have had it not been for him. To think, the only other person besides him on what seems to be this whole fucking planet and you almost croaked. Just like that. The realization of your fragile mortality had opened his eyes. You couldn’t navigate the perils of this deserted world without him. Your survival depended solely upon him. Be that as it may, don’t be mistaken by his intentions. He wasn’t exactly a knight in shining armor. As crucial as your safety was to him, he was not aiming to achieve some sort of higher moral standing or strive to be a selfless person. You had unknowingly saved him from eternal solitude and he would be damned if he let you slip through his fingers so easily. The next course of action was apparent. Convincing you of your inability to tackle this desolate world without him would only take a matter of time. You would accept him. You had to. Who else could you seek companionship from? Who else but him could provide you with affection and a chance at human company, albeit slightly standoffish; reserved company is still company. From now on, he would not be leaving your side. Whether you accepted him or not was irrelevant to the fact that you are his. And now, with your backside pressed into him, he let his breathing slow down to match the steady tempo of your own, and only then did he drift to sleep.

\----------

Waking up with a headache is quite possibly the worst way to wake up. To think, finally being released by the powerful grip of deep sleep only to be greeted with pain. You grabbed your aching head, moaning softly. The sharp, shooting pains piercing the crown of your skull would not cease even for an instant. You felt about your head, your fingers coming to rest upon a strip of cotton encasing the area that emitted the most discomfort.

“Don’t mess with that.”

You yelped, only to instantly regret it, your ailing head was not prepared for any sudden sounds or movement. You quickly scanned your darkened room to find the source of the voice. Your eyes, already being familiar with the interior of your room, quickly extracted the one thing that was not recognizable: a figure sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.

Your eyes, not yet adjusted to the darkness, squinted to try to make sense of what you were seeing.

The man sat down the book he had been reading and picked up his chair, bringing it closer to your bedside. He stepped out of the shadows and into the portion of the room that was illuminated by candlelight. 

Your heart was battering away in your ribcage. Your still muddled thinking could not decipher if what you were seeing was real or not. Your breathing caught in your throat, something your guest must have noticed because he spoke.

“Just breathe,” he commanded.

Your quivering hands gripped the folds of your blanket. “A-Are you real?” You couldn’t help by ask. Your question was innocent enough; you begged for an answer that wouldn’t condemn you to madness.

“Yes,” he responded.

“Prove it,” you demanded. You had been fooled too many times by false visions; mirages that only proved to be untrue later once you were entirely certain of their having been real.

His eyes narrowed before he quipped. “How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”

That was a good question. You remained silent as you thought of a way in which he could prove his existence to you.

He huffed out a breath, no doubt exasperated by your skepticism. He grabbed your wrist and before you could protest he placed your hand against the thin, fabric of his shirt. You felt his heart beat pulse under the skin of the inner surface of your hand. Your wide eyes stared directly into his slightly bored ones. He kept your hand situated on his chest for an awkward length of time. After a couple attempts to pull away, he released your hand quirking his eyebrow up at you.

“That settle that?”

You nodded. You felt that his answer to your uncertainty sufficed, albeit its methods of verification were unconventional and embarrassing. 

“Good,” you watched as he settled himself further back into his chair, crossing one leg over the other.

You hadn’t taken your eyes off of him yet. It’s not that you had forgotten what people looked like; you had access to an infinite amount of magazines, posters, and other pictorial media to keep you reminded. But, this was different. An actual, living person with flesh and blood was sitting less than two feet away from you. It felt exhilarating to know that even though you did not know anything about this man, his past, or the purity of his soul, the both of you shared one common aspect that up until now, had been absent in your life: you were both human.

“So,” you began, “how long have I been out?” You glanced outside the window at the dark sky. You had gone to fetch water around midday, so for the sky to be dark now had to mean that you had spent the majority of your day unconscious. You must have hit your head harder than you thought. You couldn’t picture having been asleep for that long. To think, an entire day spent cradled in the still oblivion of sleep.

“It’s going on three days.” The casual manner in which he spoke failed to match the bombshell he had just dropped on you.

“Three days!?” you shouted. You shot upwards from the lounging position you were currently in.

The man used his hand to push your shoulder back down until it made contact with the pillow that was propped up against the headboard.

“Be still,” he hissed. “You hit your head pretty hard. Your wounds aren’t going to heal properly unless you take it easy.”

You flushed from his having had to reprimand you. “Sorry…” your voice trailed off.

He nodded. “It’s going to take a while for your head to recover. You needed eight stiches. The cut was deep, so it’s going to take a couple weeks before they can be removed.”

You let your fingers dance over the compressed cotton of the bandage on your forehead. In your entire life, you’ve never been hurt this badly. Yeah, sure, you’ve scrapped your knee before riding a bike as a child or you’ve burned your hand being careless around the stove; but, you’ve never needed such thorough medical care. This was not something a band-aid and a kiss could solve. This man saved you from a multitude of scenarios in which you would no doubt have perished – drowning, bleeding out, or hypothermia could have taken you from this world had it not been for him.

A thought that had been quietly burning in the back of your mind surfaced as a question.

“How did you know I was down there?” You looked at the man, your head slightly tilted, genuinely interested in his response. You had a simple question that would evoke a simple answer had his reply not been the truth. For him to divulge how he knew you fell into the river would only certainly corrupt your developing relationship which had only begun not even twenty minutes ago (well from your perspective, at least).

“Are you hungry?” He switched the subject effortlessly.

Almost as if prompted by the mention of food, your stomach growled. You nodded sheepishly. It has been a while since you had last eaten. With all of the current excitement, you had not payed any heed to your stomach which has been quietly rumbling underneath your shirt ever since you had woken up.

He rose up from his seat and exited the room through the open door. You watched his back until he disappeared down the hallway, the darkness of the house swallowing him. You could hear ‘clinking’ noises as he rummaged through your cabinets, searching for something decent to provide you with. The hunger in your stomach only seemed to worsen as the smell of food wafted from the kitchen. After about ten minutes, he returned with a bowl of heated canned soup.

You held out your hands gratefully as he placed the bowl into your cusped palms.

“It’s hot,” he warned.

You nodded, bearing in mind his warning as you brought the spoon of soup up to your lips, blowing gently on it before you eagerly placed it into your mouth.

You ate in silence, occasionally glancing over at him but for the most part you kept your vision focused on your meal. The broth probably would have tasted a lot blander had you not been so hungry. While it lacked the heartiness of a home-cooked meal, it did provide for an easy way to fill up your empty stomach.

As you ate, your mind wandered to other questions that have been badgering you since you had awoken. The surrounding area is completely void of society, so how did this man know where you lived? It was not a straight path to the river from your home; the course you took was filled with twists and turns as you had to serpentine your way through the woods to get to the site of the stream, so how did he figure out which house was yours?

Your company must have noticed the tormented look about your face. With your arms pressed close to yours sides and the features of your face contorted, eyebrows drawn inwards and lips pursed, you exemplified the expression of someone with many unresolved doubts hanging about their mind.

“Are you finished?” he asked.

Your nodded, still too preoccupied with your thoughts to confirm with a verbal response. He took the bowl from your hands. As he returned to the kitchen to clean the bowl, you tried to assemble all of your confused thoughts into a list of questions conveyable through words.

When he returned you were ready.

“So,” you looked up at him, “how did you know which of these houses were mine? It’s not like there’s electricity; you wouldn’t have seen lights coming from the windows.” As you asked you let your fingers skim the skin of your exposed legs underneath the blanket, rubbing lightly at one of the many irritated scratches that covered your legs since your accident.

It was only now that you noticed that the oversized t-shirt you were wearing was not what had originally adorned your body since you were last conscious. You blushed deeply as realization dawned on you. You didn’t wait for him to respond to your first question before you were already moving on to the more pressing matter at hand.

You weren’t exactly sure how to go about asking this. Treading cautiously, you asked, “D-…Did you change my clothes?” You looked at him. You felt you already knew the answer to this; the proof was clinging to your body. Yet, you couldn’t help but search for some validation to what you were already very aware of.

His face was indifferent. Your accusation not deterring him in the slightest, “You would have gotten hypothermia if you had stayed in the clothes you had on. What you’re looking for is a ‘thank you’.”

The blood that had rushed to your cheeks and ears had yet to settle. You wished you hadn’t brought it up. You didn’t like to think that this man whom you barely knew had already seen your naked body. Even with the combined layers of your clothing and the covers, you felt exposed. You shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold.

Moving on from that unpleasant discovery, you picked up from the question you last left on. “You still haven’t answered how you found my house. It’s not that noticeable from the main road, the woods block it. And it’s not like you can tell from the outside that someone is living inside it,” you were rambling now but there was no stopping you when you were on a roll, “and anyways even if you checked every house in the general area to locate mine’s, there’s no way you could tell if it was mine or not. I don’t have pictures of myself or family member’s who might resemble me hanging on the walls. The odds of you finding my home are---”

He cut you off. “All right, that’s enough.” He looked visibly irritated.

Only in hindsight did you wish you didn’t press so hard to obtain information. You felt guilty. It wasn’t your intention to interrogate him. But, your reaction was only natural, wasn’t it? You had just met him. You didn’t mean to soil your introduction with mistrust and suspicion, but it was important to you that you gathered the entire story. Even with this justification you still felt the heavy weight of anxiety on your chest. This is what you have been wanting for so long, another person with whom to speak with and you were already upsetting the delicate first stages of the budding relationship with your lack of trust.

This time, it was you who changed the subject first. “So, what time is it?” You reached for your wristwatch on the nightstand, only to be intercepted by his hand reaching the watch first.

He held it close to his face, the dim lighting of the room making it hard to see. You watched as he looked at the watch, the metal rims of its surface caught the light from the candle, making it gleam despite the heavy shadows surrounding the two of you.

“Three in the morning,” he said as he set the watch back down on the stand’s polished surface.

“Wow,” you breathed out. You glanced at him, seeking to ease the strained atmosphere, “So, you’re a bit of a night owl, huh?”

“Mhm,” he hummed out in lieu of a response.

Well, that didn’t work out quite as you had wanted. You twiddled your thumbs in your lap, occasionally plucking at the emerging lint-balls coating the threads of the fatigued-looking blanket. The lack of social skills betwixt the two of you were beginning to become more apparent as you struggled to find something to say. You wondered if he was feeling as lost for words as you were. It was hard to suddenly spring back into the fickleness of open dialogue. You needed practice before you could be expected to be a valued addition to a conversation. You weren’t exactly a social butterfly with gloat-worthy conversational graces before. Now considering the circumstances, you wished you had been; it would make this a lot easier.  

After the conversation had somewhat trailed off to a long bout of silence, the man stood to his feet and headed towards the door.

The two of you had already agreed upon sleeping arrangements for him a couple minutes prior. There was a spare guest bedroom further at the end of the hall. The duration of his stay was not discussed; however, you assumed that being the apparent last remaining people in this area, it was necessary that the two of you remained in close contact in order to secure each other’s safety, prevent mental deterioration, and because, simply put, two was better than one. Besides, you didn’t want to lose your companion so soon; the liberating escape from isolation felt exquisite.

As you watched him proceed for the door, feelings of shame rose in your chest. This man had saved you and you didn’t even so much as thank him. Instead of expressing your gratitude, you had only pestered him with endless questions.

Your voice pierced the air, calling out for him before you could stop yourself.

“Wait!”

The man paused in the doorway, turning around to face you. The indifferent expression on his face left you confused as to whether or not he expected you to continue. As he rested his back against the splintering wood of the doorjamb, he crossed his arms lazily. Assuming this gesture signaled his listening, you asked him a harmless enough question; a question that would normally commence upon meeting someone new; however, the lack of social graces in the room left you having to scramble to insert your inquiry at the end of your exchange.

“W-What’s your name?”

The man uncrossed his arms and pushed his back from the wooden enclosure of the doorway. He walked back over to you. Instead of returning to his original seat in the chair, you felt the bed dip as he sat down a couple inches away from your outstretched legs.

“Levi…just Levi”

You nodded. You tested the feeling of his name on your tongue.

“Levi…Okay. Thank you, Levi.” You smiled softly, hoping to express your thanks with this small gesture of kindness.

He scooted closer to your seated form. His hand came up to rub the spot of the blankets where your knee was located. You tensed, squirming uncomfortably as his hand rose further. The skin of your thigh underneath its coverings tingled as your senses were acutely aware of his touch. You felt sheepish, growing more self-conscious the longer his hand lingered on your leg. You combed through your memories of a time before now when social interactions were more common; well, more common for others at least. Would you have considered this appropriate had you not been in these circumstances? It felt like you were grasping at something beyond your reach. You couldn’t remember the complexities of socialization; your current life did not require you know such things. So, you let his hand remain patting your leg, your failure to recall the proper conventions of social cues left you without the means or know-how to request he stop.

His eyes bore into yours as he spoke. “Tell me your name.”

You hesitated. You hadn’t spoken your own name in so long. To hear it spoken aloud, even if only by yourself, felt strange. You could have sworn he leaned forward, but what anticipation could possibly exist from your answer? Maybe he was having trouble hearing you. Capturing the appropriate volume at which to speak after months alone was something you were going to have to work on it seems.

You felt your fingers play with the fraying edges of your blanket. You inhaled a breath preparing to answer. In giving him your name, you were giving him yourself.

 

 

 

“My name is (_______).”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel very conflicted about this chapter.  
> Trying to express the reader's (and Levi's) social ineptness after months of prolonged isolation was honestly a little difficult. Originally, this chapter was meant to be combined with chapter three; however, I separated them and made this one slightly longer to make up for having split the chapter in half. I felt that it would flow better this way, and hopefully it did. Well, as always, I'd love to hear what you thought (be that through kudos or comments)! How do you feel about the reader and Levi's journey together finally commencing?

**Author's Note:**

> I have been meaning to write this down (or type it down in this case) because it's been bouncing around my head for awhile.  
> It is a rather ambitious idea I'm embarking on so wish me good luck; your'e encouragement and constructive criticism will help me as we journey down this rabbit hole together :)  
> I will be placing additional tags as I deem necessary. I will also be placing "NSFW" markers on the chapters that are obviously...uh...spicy(?) when it gets to that. I am also going to be putting additional warnings in the notes before chapters because it is not my wish or goal to offend or trigger anyone of course. Some chapters may be a lot longer than others but please bear with me as I try to pick up a rhythm to this.  
> Also! Levi will be making his appearance soon so don't get too impatient hehe  
> Be patient with me as I attempt to (hopefullypossiblymaybe) entertain you my exuberant reader :)
> 
> P.S. Alsokudosandcommentsarecoolbutwhatever


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